Ecumenical veteran sees a 'new frontier'

When Wesley Granberg-Michaelson was younger, the bad blood between
Christian denominations made the notion of a modern-day ecumenical
movement seem farfetched. Now the recently retired general secretary of
the Reformed Church in America says American Christianity has reached "a
new frontier."

"We have a chance of bringing in more around the
table the way God really intends," said Granberg-Michaelson, who stepped
down in June after 17 years in the post. "The missional church needs
the unity of the church. How else do we think we can do useful things
for the world if we're divided amongst ourselves?"

Amid a culture
too often lost in its own self-importance, Christian unity is sorely
needed, Granberg-Michaelson argues in his 288-page memoir, Unexpected
Destinations: An Evangelical Pilgrimage to World Christianity.

Known
in many Christian circles as the elder statesman of the contemporary
ecumenical movement, Granberg-Michaelson urges Christians of all
denominations to forge a new path of unity that requires them to do more
than hold hands and sing "Kumbayah."

While loyal to his Reformed
tradition, Granberg-Michaelson's book makes it clear he's grateful he
wasn't tightly tethered to his denomination. In recent years, he helped
guide the formation of Christian Churches Together, a broadly inclusive
body with a global, ecumenical scope.

He recalls that the first
time he profoundly experienced God's love was at a Trappist monastery,
explains why the once Dutch-dominated RCA must morph into something more
inclusive, and describes why the National Council of Churches and the
World Council of Churches have lost their way.

Granberg-Michaelson's
road to an inclusive Christianity started in a small way in 1950, while
growing up in a suburb in northwest Chicago where he rode bicycles with
two neighborhood friends who were Catholic.

Raised in an
evangelical household where being "born again" was paramount,
Granberg-Michaelson's mother encouraged her son to witness to his two
Catholic friends about Jesus' saving grace. But evangelistic fervor
turned into a mild case of envy when he noticed that his two friends had
medals of St. Christopher—the patron saint of travelers—on their bikes'
handlebars.

After many conversations with his boyhood friends,
Granberg-Michaelson concluded that the doctrinal chasm between them
wasn't as wide as he once thought. "The main difference was they had St.
Christopher medals on their bikes, and I didn't," he said.

When
it came to quieting his 60-hour workweeks, Granberg-Michaelson often
found solace at a Trappist monastery. He still remembers his 1972 visit
to the Holy Cross Abbey, a Trappist monastery in Berryville, Virginia,
that enveloped him with God's presence.

"I had one of those deep
and profound life-changing encounters where God's presence and love had
simply overtaken me, and has stayed with me ever since,"
Granberg-Michaelson said. "To this day, when I want to go on a retreat,
what I often do is head to a Catholic monastery."

Ethnic diversity
also is vital to the body of Christ, added Granberg-Michaelson. During
his tenure as the RCA's general secretary, 230 new churches were
established since 1993—more than half of them involving people of color.

"The
most important change is the change in the culture of the RCA,"
Granberg-Michaelson said of his 177,500-member denomination. "Deep
change isn't just changes in structure and programs but changes in
values, habits and the style of the way we meet with one another, and
bringing people into the RCA who don't know how to play Dutch bingo."

Granberg-Michaelson
writes that he is most proud of navigating the denomination through
some still-thorny issues. "Homosexuality comes to mind," he said. "I
think we've been able to say this is an issue we're not going to let
divide us, but figure out how to talk and keep our focus on the main
things and not let us get off track."

Granberg-Michaelson also
takes aim in his book at some long-held ecumenical partnerships: the
NCC, he says, has suffered from "strategic incoherence" and "inept
management."

"One problem with the modern ecumenical movement with
the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches is
it ended up—not by design—excluding huge parts of the Christian family,"
said Granberg-Michaelson, who served for six years on the WCC staff in
Geneva.

"It's made up of historical Protestants and Orthodox but
not Pentecostals or Roman Catholics. As good as the World Council of
Churches is, one-quarter of all Christians are outside their membership.
There are more Pen­tecostals today than those who are members of the
World Council of Churches." —RNS